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noun

verb

‘Reg didn't want someone meddling and queering the deal at the last minute’

‘In the case of the police shooting, however, a running commentary on the investigation should be mandatory considering it now looks like the IPCC may be queering its own investigation.’

‘An infatuation with statistics impels investigators to queer the pitch of an investigation and resort to shortcut methods to solve a crime somehow.’

‘Families in both of these control most of the stock and the families could end up queering this deal.’

‘Advanced Micro Devices has again attempted to queer Intel's developer forum pitch by using an intercept and kill strategy.’

‘With Glasgow Accies and Lenzie queering the pitch, promotion would always have been hard this year - next year Cumnock hope to be among the favourites.’

‘The ‘beer orders’ of 1989, which forced brewers to offload their vast tied estates, further queered the brewers' pitch.’

‘The two major parties use the tyranny of their majority to put their own people - their own stooges - on the commission, to make sure that they queer the pitch in their own favour.’

‘As with any partnering strategy the question is how deep does the relationship run and how do the companies stop queering each other's pitch.’

‘My dismount, however, would have queered my chances for even the bronze.’

‘Aware, in his mid-forties, that all the time off for cricket had queered his prospects for mainstream advancement at the bank, Alan seized the new career opportunity.’

‘And it's the families that could wind up queering this deal.’

‘This year's general election saw the media do several things which queered the pitch of the election debate.’

‘It's for a project which is in its early stages, and is confidential, so posting details could queer the pitch somewhat, as it were.’

‘Even so, the scene is in no need of being further queered by Brian Kulick, the director of the New York Shakespeare Festival's current Central Park revival.’

‘The pitch is further queered by the weakness of the US dollar, which makes Ireland a far more expensive travel destination for Americans.’

‘The financial services industry has to a large extent queered its own pitch.’

‘They suspected that the presidential adviser was secretly trying to queer the lawsuit, which had been undertaken by a Democratic attorney general.’

‘He knew killing Vida would queer his deal with Zoltan and leave him worse off than before.’

‘Since a viewer watching this collection would have spent three previous episodes of tedium hearing about the mystery women who queered things between Slaughter and the DEA, it's nice to have the non-entity fleshed out.’

‘Any unwelcome associations between this and the firm's frequent difficulties in getting its software delivered on time were obviously not enough to queer the deal.’

Usage

The word queer was first used to mean ‘homosexual’ in the late 19th century; when used by heterosexual people, it was originally an aggressively derogatory term. By the late 1980s, however, some gay people began to deliberately use the word queer in place of gay or homosexual, in an attempt, by using the word positively, to deprive it of its negative power. Queer also came to have broader connotations, relating not only to homosexuality but to any sexual orientation or gender identity not corresponding to heterosexual norms. The neutral use of queer is now well established and widely used, especially as an adjective or noun modifier, and exists alongside the derogatory usage